Tuesday, September 15, 2015

I also finished The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil
Gaiman, yesterday. I really enjoyed it. Gaiman is excellent at creating a sense of mystery
out of the simplest if things. Since the majority of the story was told as if
by a seven year old, that even upped the potential scare. At 7, the world has
so many mysteries that it is difficult to grasp. Gaiman uses that as well as
his own particular bent towards mythos to have the Maiden, Mother, and Crone
try to help the boy out.

The characters are interesting, and described in an
interesting and very seven year old manner. You get more based on the emotional
connection to the character. Lettie’s mother just comes across as a little
different than the usual mom, but not much. Even his parents are more
archetypes than people, which I do understand. He has a Father and a Mother and
they are Adults. Those are huge distinctions at that age.

It was an entertaining book with some very intense emotional
moments. If you like his style of writing it would be a very good read.

The other book I finished was one on Da Vinci. This book
gave a brief historical overview and then dealt with his notebooks and
anatomical drawings. The author was upfront with his focus on the anatomical
work of Da Vinci, but he ended up making it sound like Da Vinci focused more on
that than anything else. That was odd and not supported by other accounts.

I did like to learn the history and dispensation of the
notebooks after his death. That was very neat, to hear about how discoveries of
the notebooks occurred. The fact that several times chests have been opened and
surprise Da Vinci! makes me chuckle. Not a bad overview but with some problems.